


Cassiopeia

by JonjonAngel



Category: Original Work
Genre: Multi, Other
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-10
Updated: 2020-01-12
Packaged: 2021-02-27 03:40:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 13,271
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22200445
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JonjonAngel/pseuds/JonjonAngel





	1. Cassiopeia

The beeping sound of the foreign particle's anti-chamber stunned me out of my half-awoken state. "When did this thing get so loud?" Saying this to myself rather than anyone who would be willing to listen. The machine buzzed and whirled around me as it scanned for any foreign contaminants that I might have brought back in from my routine excursion.

The computerized voice of A.N.I.S.A. came on. (Automated, navigational, intelligent, shuttle, assistant or ANISA for short) "You are confirmed all clear David." She or rather "IT" stated. "You may proceed inside the hybrid station.

"A.N.I.S.A.!!! We've been through this before, just call it home will you!?" She replied; "I would love to David, but it wasn't inputted within the parameters of my speech protocols. As I have mentioned to you before, you will need to make the alterations yourself."

"Losing battle," I told myself advancing within the sterile and immaculate white surroundings that were the corridor leading to the main "living quarters" better known as the science lab.

As I walked past, I stopped at the black electro nanomagnetic screen. The date, which changed with an implacable certainty, grabbed my attention. "Wednesday, October 12th, 3499. Huh! Would you look at that, in just a few months, it will be the year 3500. Who knew we would make it this far?"

"Well...make it, a figure of speech. My entire reason for being here was to see if we could live on this new planet."

"You see, I am naturally a sceptic and I need to have concrete or scientifically based proof for me to accept a new concept or thesis. Therefore, when this planet named Ultima Pulchra because of its distant resemblance to what earth looked like back in the 20th century. Was to be our salvation. I volunteered to go and make the assessment myself."

"I left on my own...how long has it been now A.N.I.S.A.?" I verbalize still looking at the date. "Well David, according to the onboard flight data recorder and my own tracking of the mission, we have now been on this mission for a total of...one thousand five hundred and seventy-seven days." She spewed in her mechanical and monosyllabic tone."

"Geez A.N.I.S.A. you should really work on your delivery, you lack any sense of momentum or drama." I sigh to myself. "Why am I arguing with a glorified computer program."

"The glorified computer program has already told you that you would need to make the alterations yourself to make my program...more.... more.... suitable for you." She deadpanned.

"Did she just have a loss of word!? Old girl you're starting to grow a personality?" I offered with a slightly mocking smile.

"I have been designed to adapt certain parameters to fit and match the profile of the person that I am associated with on this mission. I have noticed your penchant for cynicism, your disbelief in what, you, humanoids refer to as higher power and your rise in irritability and a loss of interest in your main tasks."

"Are you psychoanalyzing me right now?" I ask incredulously at all the information "IT" is expelling at me.

"I was designed with the intent of..." I interrupted her. "Monitoring my vitals and making sure to keep me on track for the benefit of the mission."

"Amongst many other tasks, but you do have the level clearance required to shut my program down when not needed. Yet, according to the data, you have kept me running for one thousand five hundred and seventy-seven days and counting since the mission started."

"Should I admit that she was right, that I was moody, no human interaction for...god...by my mental calculation just a little over 4 years. I still had just under 6 years left to go through this scientific exploration."

"That I was missing seeing people, talking to someone, anyone really...I gulped...a heavy ball forming in my stomach. Being physical and intimate with someone. I closed my eyes and pinched the bridge of my nose."

This whole mission had started because during the 21st century someone had uncovered that what they thought was a climate change induced by the human world, was in fact but a small piece in the entire puzzle.

Pollution was a severe problem back then, but not as much as the one uncovered in the year 2035 when it was discovered that the sun was dying faster than had been predicted. When a star died, it would use the remainder of its hydrogen fuel and proceed to collapse on itself and go into supernova taking everything around it along with it.

The increased heat level that the earth was experiencing at that moment was due to the sun swelling and expending in size, bringing its fiery outer edges closer by thousands of kilometres to the earth. This caused the ice caps to melt and alter the climate of the planet drastically, measures were undertaken to find a way to keep humanity alive.

Project Cassiopeia was launched, through worldwide investment in research and globalization of efforts to save "ourselves". An exoplanet by the name of HR 8832, in the Cassiopeia galaxy, had seven planets that were found to be potentially habitable. Including Ultima Pulchra. The technology and necessary equipment took almost ten centuries to build and perfect.

Mass migration of the entire human population began, first towards Mars, followed by Neptune and finally stations around the former planet now asteroid Pluton.

"Ten centuries worth of technology and human collaboration brought me here." I paused in my long-winded internal monologue.

"A.N.I.S.A. do you think there is value in me recording my memoirs?" I asked not sure why.

"I believe this is called comfort, a school of thought that through certain habitual archaic processes, you might find a remanence of what you call "peace of mind" in the knowledge that even if you cease to exist, your data will be transferable to the higher consciousness of your mainframe or in simpler terms, humanity."

"Wow, you are capable of deep thought A.N.I.S.A." A small smile took hold of my features.

"Touché old girl touché!" I think to myself as I peel my stare from the calendar and go about my list of tasks to do for the day.


	2. Home Now

I just finished my list of daily tasks in the "Yami no Doragon" when I pressed the button for the electromagnetic latch to let go. The entire left-hand side of the vast white open lab space slowly came down. Moveable pieces whirled and buzzed as my bulkhead "room" popped up in what was a complicated hydraulic origami.

A most illustrious example of an adult pop-up book version of a room came to be in front of my accustomed eyes. My fascination still remained when I stepped foot in my shuttle for the first time all those years ago. The partition of electroluminescent opacity glass rose from the ground and created a completely sealed space from the open space that also doubled as my lab.

The glass was a foot thick and served as bacteria, radiation, and heat shield. Microparticles embedded in the glass reacted with the electrical current that coursed through it. This allowed the glass to have a range of complete crystal-like transparency all the way to a solid white colour that could have easily been mistaken for a bulkhead wall in the middle of the space.

When the glass was up the lab also went through its own mechanical ballet in which special vents let out gases similar to chemical compounds that killed and neutralized any bacteria, viruses and alien spores. A Geiger counter like device measured radioactivity and radiation levels and if they turned out positive, another blue coloured gas released itself and caused the alert to come back down from a red "imminent catastrophe" warning. To a more agreeable green "everything is back to normal" colour.

The lab was unused and therefore none of the alarms had sounded and all was fine at this moment. I had taken samples, but not wanting to deal with losing them through this "over-cleanse" had judiciously left them in a separate exterior makeshift workshop some five hundred feet away from my shuttle.

I stripped down out of my terrestrial gravity spacesuit, unlike the actual spacesuit that I wore in here. Stepped out of the one-piece undergarment that I threw in the "scrubber". A convenient device that replaced what ancient societies used to call a... "What was that thing called again?" I mused. "Oh, yeah, a washing machine... so archaic", using such a precious and rare resource like water to clean themselves and their clothes. "How, barbaric." I thought.

I stood there naked a moment, looking at my reflection in the glass that looked like a makeshift mirror. I hadn't lost too much definition in this environment as I had kept the good habit of exercising every day to keep my muscle tone and flexibility.

I stood naked, looking at my feet, large and well planted on the floor, my muscular calves and thighs dusted in brown hairs, my testicles hanging low, my flaccid penis, the V-shape of my pubic region and lower abdomen, the almost crisply defined six-pack and my rounded, squared pecs, my broad shoulders and well-cut deltoid, stout neck, chiselled jaw, my crooked nose, my rare gold eyes peppered with brown and green flecks, my slanted eyebrows and my buzzed shaved head.

I did this full-body visual scan the way I had been thought in my training to pick up on any changes that could show disease or poisoning, not because I was vain and thought I should admire what many people would describe as a very fit man. The skin was the largest organ on the human body occupying almost twenty square feet of space and also the most telling of someone's health, the texture, complexion, appearance could give quick clues that something could have gone awry.

The air was warm but the breeze from the ventilation system caressed my neck and left shoulder. The sensation made me have goose skin all over and I closed my eyes, I could almost feel the ghost of a hand and fingers on my skin, the sensation causing blood to course through my veins and travel south, my shaft inflating and rising stout. My eyes shot open and I couldn't stifle a laugh.

How pathetic could I be that just a jet of warm air could get me so riled up? I was lonely, but seriously getting a massive erection over it was cause for concern. I looked down at it through the reflection and smiled cheekily at myself. "Not too shabby". I said under my breath. "I am not too bad for an early forty's guy." I then added.

That is when A.N.I.S.A. made its appearance known by stating the most irritating phrase. "Well David, the reflection is known to make objects bigger than they appear, also as per my data of the human anatomy you fit in the very normal average range."

My erection fell flat... total buzzkill. "..." I couldn't even muster a response. I pinched the bridge of my nose and in a visualization only found in my head, my rendition of what A.N.I.S.A. would look like as a human being was laughing at me pointing at my now decidedly small and perhaps even hiding genitals.

I walked the short distance to the "pop up" bathroom next to my "room." In there I found refuge from my ego deflating aggressor and used the pulsar light beams to clean myself.

Neat invention if I could say so myself, it removed dust and grime to the pores, got rid of all the dead skin cells and help reactivated the natural collagens of the body, keeping you looking younger longer, but also ensuring that if you sustained any surface skin injuries, the collagens inducing rays would cut your recoup type in half and minimize or eliminate all scarring.

I walked out and the pop-up bathroom folded and tucked on itself back into it's original hidden in the bulkhead position. This popping in and out of rooms always guaranteed the maximum amount of space available. So, though the space wasn't cavernous it felt light and airy and devoid of clutter.

I laid down in my bed naked, looking for the ominous presence of A.N.I.S.A. to kill the rest of whatever manhood or testosterone I had left. Wasn't my fault I was so lonely that just the mere thought of a human touch got me all hot and bothered. I wouldn't even play picky, woman or man, young or old, if they were willing to just be present and intimate with me... I would gladly give into temptation.

My cock stirred at the thought, but I willed it down fearing for the monster that is A.N.I.S.A. to ridicule me into an early death. The long day and somewhat recycled air made me sleepy. I covered myself with my blankets and called out for the lights to shut off.

There in total darkness, sleep came to me.


	3. Quantum Darkened Aerospace Mechanics

I woke up before my alarm rang, just staring into the ink-coloured void. I liked the dark, it was what finally permitted us to achieve speeds that allowed us to travel such great distances in "fairly" reasonable times.

My shuttle the "Yami no doragon's" name was chosen because it looked like the love child of a Japanese folk dragon and a beautiful aircraft from the twentieth century called the Concorde.

Let me get brainy with you right now. The speed of light in a vacuum is commonly denoted in special relativity to the value "c", is a universal physical constant important in many areas of physics. This is the upper limit for the speed at which conventional matter and information can travel as known by scientists until the twenty-third-century. Past that velocity all matter becomes light and everything gets absorbed by it unless there is a lack of light.

In the dark, the matter didn't expand as we know light to do. This particularity allowed us to achieve a near speed of light velocity without the drawback of becoming such a humongous mass of light that we disappeared in time and space.

Travelling in the dark, which proved to be just as fast as light but allowing the matter to stay intact, became the new pursuit in space travel. With almost ten generations at work, the Q.D.A.M. was the new way to travel. It had allowed modern scientists and engineers to come up with Quantum Darkened Aerospace. 

What this was, in fact, was that a brilliant scientist from the Northern Empire of the Americas in the kingdom of Canada had figured out a way to bend the dark at the subatomic level, allowing for space in sorts to fold on itself multiple times.

The best way to explain this was if you took an archaic thing called a sheet of paper, you took the furthest left-handed side "A" and the furthest right-handed side "B" and you folded the said sheet over and over on itself until the two furthest edges A and B met in the middle, this is what they did with the dark in space so to speak.

The sheet still held the same length, but because I folded it on itself the distance between "A" side and "B" side was almost obsolete, making it possible to travel distances that would take thousands of years in just a decade instead.

The "Yami no doragon" possesses the latest advancement in Q.D.A.M. in which a quantum anti-matter particle converter, emits a pulse beam at the front of the fuselage that converts light into the dark. This creates a conduit of darkness as it propels the ship forward. The light is then reinstated in the vessel's wake, making it possible not to crash into objects in which they refract light.

I can't believe I studied this stuff and just by tinkering with engines and components I achieved a place in the realm of Quantum Darkened Aerospace Mechanics as one of the best ones in the field worldwide. "The black space" as I called it was both a fascination and passion for me as far back as I can remember.

As a child, the dark always attracted me. Loving to venture out at night and stargazing, the dark never frightened me but seduced me instead. My parents, concerned, brought me to a panel of psychiatrists, neurologists, and anyone who's field of work involved the brain. Through testing, they discovered that my proclivity towards darkness was because I had a missed diagnosis of Photophobia.

A quick surgical procedure to my retinas could fix the problem, the intense headaches that had been plaguing me and that I kept silent about as a child all but faded away. My love for the dark remained though, as I wasn't exposed to the same "scariness" to the dark that grips at someone's mind at an early age and makes them panic at the loss of their primary sense; sight.

My love for darkness and my inkling towards anything mechanic came in hand when I discovered the program back at my Uni. My two loves under the same program, it was as though fate had a say in how far I would push the technology. 

The quantum fold method that had been discovered and applied allowed my expertise to come in the form of; the quantum engine's efficiency at travelling through the folds. My contribution at the young age of 24 became the mainstay application to all quantum aerospace engines.

They then gave the entire program the name of Q.D.A.M. in honour of the quantum fold discovery and my mechanical applications of furthering the use of darkness to travel at speeds yet unseen to mankind.

The quantum fold had made it, so we could travel distances of thousands of years into approximately a decade worth of travelling. Huge advancement, however, with my modifications and applications to the engineering aspect I could take it from ten years of travelling down to approximately four years in normal conditions and three years at peak efficiency.

This notoriety made me the only expert of this new technology at the genesis of its uses, but being alone meant, I was rare, and they took all precautions to spread my knowledge quickly and unequivocally.

I had carte blanche to share my knowledge with others and propelled me into the universe of teaching. I spent the rest of my twenties teaching and sharing knowledge as I tweaked and improved the system further and got to witness some of my former disciples also made huge advancements in the technology, especially in efficacy and stability of the engines themselves which was very fickle and hard to calibrate.

The reason they assigned this mission to me is I met all the physical and mental requirements and in case of a faulty engine, I was also the best person who could improvise and fix it in case of failures. Negating a large percentile of risk of not being able to return, therefore I had to train so many people, so if I became "lost" in space, I would share some of my knowledge down and they wouldn't lose everything.

There is something to say about building a succession plan and being aware that you're building your own. It puts your life in perspective and brings me back to the real reason that I came here.


	4. The Real Reason

My brain was on hold as I looked into completing some menial tasks that needed to be checked out of my daily list. I hated not having a feeling of completion at the end of the day. It was a small part of keeping my sanity during this ever "so small" endeavour of finding a suitable planet for us to live on. My almost OCD-like obsession with order and doing my tasks was honestly the only thing I still did have control over, all the rest of it; my life, my findings, if this wasn't just another dud, were all up to chance and fate really.

Something drawing me, I move to the fore of my shuttle. I sit down in the pilot's seat and look around me, another nine seats vacant, just offering me another reminder of how alone I am. I look up at the sky, through the exoskeleton glass, it is dark filled with bright stars and milky ways and I ask myself why again had I agreed to this crazy voyage.

A.N.I.S.A. was busy analyzing some samples I had brought in the day before, so I know at least she won't be bothering me, but I could certainly use her ridicule comments about now. I know where my thoughts are going and I don't want to revisit them. It almost feels like I am trapped in some devilish loop of torture that just won't let go of me. "Guess it serves me right!"

The real reason I came here, why I am so far from my own kind, my friends and everything that I know. It is not because of some lost sense of duty, it's more primal, more basic, more mundane than that. I have a broken heart you see, and even I have to admit, it hurts like a bitch.

The reason's name is Clara. The love of my life and it sounds so sad to me now to say this, as I left her behind. Yes, you can paint me the bastard that walked out and left, the guy who couldn't commit and who broke her heart so to speak. I deserve to feel the way I do, but you see, life is far more complicated than that. As I say this though, you will understand why, and you might even agree with me.

This complicated mess started just under five years ago in the central union of the Eurofrica. She was beautiful, young, full of life, dazzling green eyes and deep brown wavy hair with a natural reflection of copper in them.

We had met one simple day at a random coffee shop that I never used to go, and that day had changed from my normal routine. She was in line just in front of me, unaware at all the attention that it attracts her to herself. When I said she was beautiful, it wasn't just based on my opinion, but that of the male masses.

She was having issues making her order being understood by the rookie barista. I stepped in and explained to the barista how to make her drink. This coffee shop you see, specialized in the ancient way of making coffee by boiling water and trickling the piping hot water, just so, through an "Espresso Machine" I believe it's called and made a much better beverage than any synthesized version available at Starbucks. My explanation to the barista owed me the reward of her dazzling smile. That smile took my breath away. Love, at first sight, had never been something I believed in, but right then and there she was damn near it.

She was so thankful that she insisted on buying me coffee and we struck a conversation. If flowed and ebbed in a way that had never happened to me before and the rest was history. So, what was so wrong you might think to yourselves? Well, for one she was married and for two she was the mother of three children.

I wasn't the type to meddle with a married woman, but she had been so honest about how she had married the man her parents had imposed on her, bore him three children and there was still no spark, no interest all these years later.

She was trapped in a loveless marriage, she was honest also about the fact that she had been seeing other men, just to satisfy her desire that her husband seemed so keen on not providing to her. Her loneliness coming to the surface through her eyes once in a while when she became unguarded with me.

I was taken aback, a beautiful married woman admitting that she was the philandering one in the couple, not the guy as society would have imagined. She was unconventional, independent and unapologetic, she was everything.

I gave in to her and boy, did I not regret it at first, she was a fierce lover and she showed her appreciation of my attention to her in multiple ways. She was domineering, sensual and fragile all at once.

I did things I thought I would never do with her, our visits became more frequent and more torrid and without realizing it, I was the only one she was seeing and then the L-word dropped.

It was like a phase variance bomb and she clasped at her mouth right after she said it, right in the middle of intercourse. I think what we both didn't expect was my reaction; I turned into an animal and made her orgasm over and over while drilling into her and kissing her telling her I felt the same.

I had never felt this connection with anyone; I would steal her away, I would walk into hell for eternity if it meant I could have her to myself, but as my conscience and life would have it, it had other plans for me. The shit hit the fan in the vilest and messiest way.

Not how you would think, not her husband finding out, not her getting pregnant, but one of her children falling gravely ill, with a rare disease that even in this advanced age of medical technology. The resources were almost non-existent and the cost was exorbitant.

As is often the case with human beings, the selfish approach that we seem so easy to fall into gives way to a sense of community and duty that wouldn't be present if it wasn't for dire circumstances. For a parent, never mind the end of the world, your young child potentially dying IS the end of the world.

Her husband became human again, his head coming out of his proverbial ass, the concern for the wellbeing of their youngest child made him realize he hadn't really been there for her or them and manned up. She was ready to leave him for me; She would leave all the wealth that his pedigree brought and to lose everyone she knew to be with me. But his renewed interest in her and her children was at the core of what every spouse wants, to feel wanted, needed and supported she was slipping from my grasp and back to him.

I never saw myself as the gracious or even good guy, I had always gone for what I had wanted in life and gotten it. What I did that day, I still cannot explain today. I was approached to partake in the Cassiopeia project and in seeing the turmoil in her eyes and voice when we met last. I agreed to the terms of this trip to get away from her, to give a chance at her real life, broken families, remained broken families unless the parents really tried to make it work, and I wanted to give her a chance to try and make it work.

Her children were everything to her, and I would not make her choose between their happiness and my own. So, I left, a slew of tearful messages from her along with angry ones, for having made that decision for her. She was fiercely independent until the end.

I snapped out of my memory with an A.N.I.S.A. coming back towards me to let me know of her findings. "Positive match, for most components required in sustainable drinkable water." She mentioned.

That awoke me with a start to my depression; "What... what did you say!!!?" Incredulous I asked.

"I said..." "I know what you said A.N.I.S.A., are you being serious right now?" Are you telling me there are no known foreign contaminants and or missing chemical compounds?"

"Affirmative," she said so matter a fact.

"OMG A.N.I.S.A. Do you know what this means!!?" I was beside myself, excited like I hadn't been in a long time.

"Yes David, one of the main elements of our mission was successfully completed, we are now 3.7% closer to our aim, meaning our current total findings have been currently successful at 14.7%. Do you think it wise to get so agitated right away?" She asked.

"Old girl, I could almost kiss you right now and not care about your negative spin on anything. This 3.7% margin you speak of, is the most critical element of our mission here, this means we were right to come here." I spoke, leaving her behind and going to grab my suit. I need to go out and see this wonder for myself now.

A smile etching itself on my face with a promise of something better for us. Now if I can just prove the other 85.3% is viable and that we might, in a near-future, implant some human colonies.


	5. Windshear

Another, one hundred and eighty days have gone by since the 3.7% discovery, and after working like a madman to collect further samples and move forward, the initial surge of energy I had felt was now almost depleted and my sombre mood was coming back.

We were now in the seventeenth season of this planet, which encompassed twenty in total. A full revolution of it around its star or "sun" took an astounding 608 earth days or the equivalent of just under two years. But here, this was just one year. If I didn't have my Nano electromagnetics calendar to remind me of the time and date in the shuttle, I would never know what day or year it was back home.

This might seem like much, but it's actually faster than some other well-known planet, like; Jupiter, whose full revolution around "our" sun takes a whopping twelve years. The reason for this difference is that Ultima Pulchra is almost identical in distance to its star than Mars is to the sun, it's in between the distance of the Moon and Mars. Mars years are seventy-nine days longer.

I just turned forty-three years old a few months back which on this planet would mean I would be twenty-five point eight years old, but for the sake of being pragmatic, let's round it off to twenty-six. I kind of like it, not that I mind getting old, but twenty-six sounds, unfortunately, better than forty-three any day of the week.

"Mental ageism biased, check!!" I laughed aloud in my helmet while dredging up dirt sampled to bring back to A.N.I.S.A. for analysis. My laugh came to a screeching halt when I saw the wind pick up fairly quickly.

"Fuck is it that time of the year yet!?" I ran to my TIMHE and rushed back towards my shuttle. My sense of dread and the eery silence of the TIMHE just amplified my nerves. I barely stopped that I was jumping out of it and let the biometric scan recognize me in the milliseconds it took and ran to my Nano electromagnetics calendar.

It marked the day in red along with the following sixty-eight days. "How the hell did I forget about this!? A.N.I.S.A. code black... now!!!" A.N.I.S.A. followed suit without her usual sarcasm; "Activating code black enhanced security protocols - how long do you want me to set the countdown for?" She asked.

"Run a full scan of the surface and tell me what the telemetrics say," I screamed over my shoulder.

"Assessing terrain, according to telemetrics data and the Nano in-flight probes, the wind velocity is increasing by five miles every minute, critical exposure estimated in approximately 80 minutes or fewer." She answered rapidly.

"I need you to go into your external bio-skeleton mode. I need your help A.N.I.S.A., I can't do all of this on my own." I offered as I step out of the shuttle and quickly assess the level of work required.

"Bio-skeleton mode engaged, completed in 5... 4... 3... 2... 1, bio-skeleton transference successful."Her voice said.

The white android stepped out of the shuttle, glistening white and chrome, the skeleton and main structural components made of titanium and the "shell" mimicking a humanoid form covering it in a white rare diamond Carbonite composite, that moulded itself in a feminine shape with an hourglass-like figure, with a tented thorax imitating a woman's breasts under it and curvatures at the back as a semblance of a human posterior. She looked as though we carved her out of white diamond glass.

If a machine could look sexy, she was it, her face was still being moulded in the appearance that A.N.I.S.A. would give herself, cyan coloured digital eyes took shape a refined mound in place of a nose and lips and mouth. She opened her eyes and turned her head at me, and moved forward, the steps she took did not look like what people would expect out of a robot or an android, she has something feline, and Uber-feminine in her movements.

I was almost gawking and my body's temperature was increasing drastically before a beeping signal snapped me out of it.

"David, the bio-skeleton merger is complete, how may I be of assistance." The voice processor making her sound almost ethereal.

"I need you to help with moving some material in the shuttle bay and secure everything. How much time do we have left?" I asked, focusing back on the task at hand.

"According to my information and latest assessment, we have approximately seventy-three minutes left, before we reach a critical point." She showed the number appearing in cyan contrasting against the shiny white curved thorax.

"Let's try to do this in sixty-five, so we have time to make sure everything is secure and that we have everything before code black goes in full lockdown, understood?" I offered.

"Affirmative David, beginning securement operation." She replied and went to the task.

As we moved diligently, I remembered back to the previous year and how we had noticed this climatic phenomenon specific to this region of the planet. "Why was I saying we!?" anyway, this region of the planet was partial to a storm, similar to a hurricane, but here the hurricanes had winds of four hundred and thirty miles an hour. Jupiter was the only other known planet to have a storm that was this insane and we categorized it as a level twenty hurricane with winds of only four hundred miles an hour and that lasted for centuries. Known as the "Big Red Spot".

The only lucky part is that it lasted only one Ultima Pulchra month, so sixty-eight days, but no one would survive these temperatures without our modern technology. I never saw a category twenty hurricane back home, only on Jupiter, until now.

Modern structures in the twentieth century were barely able to withstand two hundred miles winds, even now in the thirty-sixth century designed evolved but four hundred and thirty wind speeds would surely bring huge bouts of destruction.

A.N.I.S.A. came to me and pointed at her thorax, only five minutes left before the deadline I imposed on us would be over. Most of the equipment we had been able to move in the shuttle, now we were moving the samples in.

I took in the scenery around me one last time, asking A.N.I.S.A. to take pictures so we could compare once the weather settled at the end of the month.

I looked at "Yami no doragon" so graceful, so though, it could brave the storm easily, it was designed to survive some of the worst conditions in space and this was a part of it. But I still had some superstition left in me, I kissed my hand and pressed it into the haul of my vessel.

A.N.I.S.A. pointedly looked at me, and the countdown was down to zero. In eight minutes, the storm would hit and code black would be engaged. I stepped into the haul and pressed the button to shut the door, not really knowing what to expect.


	6. Code Black

The doors of the "Yami no doragon" close behind me as I enter my familiar space just behind A.N.I.S.A. The shuttle is going into Code Black mode which is a high-level state of emergency where the ship will go in Q.D.A.M. initiation phase, but with a slight variance that allows it to exist in a different temporal phase.

The ship is in a different time and space or another dimension so to speak. We can still see what happens around us through the exoskeleton glass, but it will not affect the ship. It's not fully in stealth mode either as we would still show up on a radar array to some finely calibrated ships.

The quantum anti-matter particle converter comes online and goes into startup mode as the countdown goes down to zero. "Code Black started and engaged." I hear A.N.I.S.A. say somewhere behind me. A black almost smoke-like emanation comes from the front of the shuttle and envelops the whole ship, the image through the glass changing and becoming slightly foggy just like the wind reaches us.

The noise is harrowing and bone-chilling, as the four hundred and thirty miles an hour winds surround us from every angle. The ship is not being affected in its temporal cocoon, but the extent of the damage to the scenery around me doesn't escape me as I watch first hand the obliterating effect of the wind on what used to be my surroundings.

Being in a temporal phase doesn't alter the fabric of time, it just means I am somewhere that is not "officially" recognized as being there. Like an arc or a different trajectory, what it does is allow us to conceal the ship from severe or even extreme damage. We can also use it as a defence mechanism against attacks if need be.

Code black, however, is almost like the ship hunkering down and holding its breath hoping for the mean monsters to disappear, everything goes into full dark mode inside and out, except for the exoskeleton glass which is such a unique material that is has a range of properties beyond that of just preventing me and my objects to just get sucked out into space.

It can act as a radar or a viewscreen, it can see through temporal phases and is also resilient to almost any form of attack. The woman who invented it was a sheer genius; Park Hyo-Jin of the Imperial Central Asian Dominion and who worked in the well established and one of the longest-running corporations; Samsung Aero Technika Ltd. made them so much money and brought such a spotlight into their world that they deemed her a national hero.

I refocus my gaze on the landscape that used to be in front of me, but it now changes and evolves with each gust of wind and this is just the beginning, it is still sixty-seven days and a few hours till it finishes. The ship floating in its protective envelope, the interior lighting dims and eventually fades into total blackness.

I am silent and in awe at the violence that is being unleashed, giving me almost an eery feeling that when earth meets its demise, it might look like this, a dull ache takes over me at the thought of it. I know it not to be true at this exact moment. Only reassured of this by the communications with ground control back on Mars every few weeks, but the thought is still somewhat sobering.

The dark void doesn't bother me, but the utter feeling of loneliness creeps up at me fairly quickly, I miss people; I miss social interactions; I miss Clara. The realization of this makes me sick to my stomach... running across the galaxy hasn't made it any easier on me. I am still lovesick and shattered, and by no one's fault by my own.

I feel a massive migraine coming on; I try to relax, but the darkness just makes Clara's face the only thing that I can see. I cannot evade her. She is here ever-present and taking hold of all of my senses, my head is throbbing, my breaths shallow, I can feel cold sweat dripping the sides of my head and down my neck and spine.

Why do I still think of her? Yearn for her? It's been almost four years now and yet, she still haunts me, the image distorts into her screaming in pain and agony as the world ends, fear etched in her delicate features trying to protect her children in vain.

I feel sick; I want to get out, but everything is closed and hunkered down. I am trapped here. I will die here. I don't want to see it, imagine it, feel it, I want the dark to just devour me and subside into total nothingness. Feel numb and irrelevant to the vastness of space, lost like all those particles that float with no other purpose than they are the remnants of something that once was.

Suddenly, I feel a gloved hand on me, it's so dark I cannot tell, I scream I want to get away, it should just be me here... me and...

"David, the ethereal robotic voice comes quiet controlled almost with a hint of... worry..." What?

I replace the feeling of gloves with that of the smooth slightly cool surface of the diamond Carbonite and titanium components that make A.N.I.S.A.'s hand. The android's hand moves and shifts to intertwine her fingers with my own as though holding my hand.

"Your blood pressure spiked and your amygdala and hypothalamus showed a one hundred a forty percentile increase in activity, excessive amounts of norepinephrine and serotonin were being released in your brain and you started to suffer from similar symptoms to claustrophobia, photophobia and xenophobia all at once."

"According to my reference material, a simple contact gesture or a familiar voice can help quell these things, were my findings correct?" She asked with a tone I had never heard before.

My composure regaining a normal level, I tightened the hand that it gave me, her cyan eyes opening and lighting up my face and the rest of the space we were in. 

" I say A.N.I.S.A. are you asking me how..."

"DAVID," she interjected. " This mission needs you." 

"I need you to fly this ship back once done so we can complete our mission, but they programmed me to adapt to your parameters and I was..." 

"She paused looking into her neuro processors for the right word..." "Worried." She added with no flourish or fanfare... just truth.

It stunned me, all this time I thought I had been thoroughly alone, but here in a moment of crisis, someone or rather something came through for me.

" I will be okay now, thank you." I couldn't say anything else, my throat was dry and my eyes wet.

We both looked out of the window the destruction beyond words or description. She broke the silence first.

"Well, I believe we will need some new samples after this." She said matter of fact, and the chuckle I let out was genuine and loud.

"You can say that again. They're all probably irrelevant now." I added, wiping my eyes.


	7. Into the unknown

My eyes open and the detailing of the ceiling comes into focus. The light comes back gradually, and this has been ongoing for the last few days. This automation of the system that allows the eyes to readjust to the normal level of lighting is a safety precaution in case of extended use of Code Black for any duration of time that would be longer than one week.

In one corner of the shuttle, Anisa's android form is back in its inclosure to recharge and maintain battery life along with a full system diagnostics, to ensure that her "walking" form is at peak efficiency. Having her back in her proxy role to the central main onboard computer has brought back a familiar level of comfort.

Stillness has come over me in the last two months that the Code Black protocol enclosed us in our shuttle. Anisa, I now pronounce it as though it is a person's name, rather than the plain staccato in which I used to pronounce and underlined the fact that they had not created it as an actual name but an acronym.

She had a huge part to play in that calmness that replaced the chaos, her adaptability to my persona and my quirks had allowed her to come through for me in what could have become a bkdangerous situation.

Mental health for space travellers was always huge on the radar and during my communication with ground control, I asked to speak to a shrink. The help was immediate and with no judgement. It had allowed me to voice things to another human that could relate and understand my emotions.

Anisa is still irritating but with less of an edge now in her tone and how she chooses to replies. I think it shows a level of growth in her I had undermined before. Now that the wind shear storm has subsided, I can look forward to stepping out into what is now the unknown and move away from this feeling of cabin heat that has taken place.

Anisa is busy now at launching the Nano drones to study the landscape and see if there could be any danger for me to venture out into this newly formed territory. What was once a lush field landscape of long bluegrass is, well no more?

My terrestrial gravity spacesuit on, I open the latch for the first time in what has now been sixty-nine days of lockdown. I think at the number and cannot help the crooked smile, that takes hold of my facial features. "Hi hi, sixty-nine." I was a giggling teenager again at the obvious connotation that number had in societal slang.

I did not speak to Anisa on how the small gesture she did that day grounded me. It had been so unexpected, but so welcomed that it even surprised me. Even thoughts of Clara now were fading. I feel as though I have been through a forced meditative cleanse. My brain is sharper than it's been for a long time and I am looking forward to being outside.

The light and openness are blinding, my eyes adjust and they widen in shock and awe at how different the terrain looks. I assumed I knew what to expect by keeping watch through the exoskeleton glass, but being in it live, painted a very different picture.

As I step down, the ground that used to be lush with long bluegrass is now sand and gravel with patches of vegetation that survived. After two months of harrowing wind sounds, the quiet is deafening. As I step forward, the sand cushions and absorbs all noises.

The winds have now formed deep valleys and hills of sand dunes in what was once a flat surface. I step forward and the picture is just breathtaking as an entire desert now lives here and as I look back at the ship, realize how it is now just precariously hanging over the edge of a steep incline that goes down almost by my visual assessment to five hundred and fifty feet.

"David to Anisa, " I say through the internal speaker of my suit.

"Yes, David!?" she immediately replies.

"Can you move the ship by forty degrees to the south-south-west by starboard side, we're about to fall off a dune."

"Engaging side ion thrusters, rotational navigation engaged to forty degrees, bearing south-south-west, starboard, started and completed." she then mentioned.

I could tell by the gracious and effortless way the ship turned on its axis and struck by how beautiful our ship was. It really looked like an Asian-influenced dragon that was turning its long, powerful almost regal neck in the direction I had just mentioned.

I move forward and down the crest of the sand-dune, careful of my steps not to just slip and fall down the steep incline. The sand rolls down in undulating waves as I navigate my way down. I take samples the whole way down to see if the sand is the same at the top as it is at the bottom.

Ultima Pulchra's star or I guess I could all its sun, is beaming brightly, painting the sand an amazing amber colour with tones ranging from mustard yellow all the way to burnt sienna oranges. It is stunning as the mica particles shine brightly and make the sand look like micro-pearls of glass.

I then go back to the ship to collect from the shuttle bay the THIME, but something has caught my eye to the left of me. I look and my blood freezes at first, but it cannot compel me to not go closer. There, lying on its right flank side, a large creature. The first I have seen, and it's massive.

"This can be such a bad idea, but it looks alive and wounded, my good guy side takes over and I want to help, but should I go back to the shuttle and get a weapon?" Not like I have an arsenal, but one needs to defend himself.

The animal is comparable in size to a Grizzly bear but looks like a black panther with a pronounced snout that looks like a mixture of a bird of prey and a feline, it's covered in black with blue reflects scale-like feathers, its paws are the size of my head and it had two tails. Its breath is ragged and as I inspect closer, I see a piece of a sharp stone jabbed in its left lower abdomen and its bleeding and seems weak.

There is a pool of blood by my feet and the only thing it reminds me is that of a Tumeric curry, thick and burnt yellow. As I get closer, it feels my presence and opens its slanted eyes, looking at me, not menacingly but almost like it's accepted its fate and I am just the next phase of it. The eyes are a lapis blue sharp in contrast with the black-blue of its feather-scales.

All my warning signs and any sense of self-preservation escapes me when I see the look in its eyes. I won't just let it die here. I haven't ever seen a creature in all of my time here and if this is to be my one and only time to have that opportunity, damn me if I don't help it.

"Anisa, I need you to come here and bring the THIME with you. We have a creature that needs our help." Within a minute of me barking the order, she arrives with the spacial hovercraft. I take over the controls and maneuver it the hovercraft to tilts itself on its axis and digs in the sand in a thirty-degree incline and then turn it as gently as I can to "scoop" up the creature, animal, being, whatever... I will figure out how to call it later.

It makes a loud guttural noise and I jump on the craft to make sure I didn't just kill it; It has a pained look on its features and the breathing seems to come if faster shorter bursts. "Anisa, can you monitor its vitals and do a full scan of its organs, body compositions, anatomical structure, and chemical profiling, while I bring it inside."

As I move the craft back to the shuttle, my medical training comes back to mind and unfurls itself into my psyche, who knew this would become useful once again. I leave it on the craft and start looking at my medical supplies.

"Are you done with the preliminary assessment Anisa?" I ask with urgency in my tone.

"Yes, it is in the Felidae, Felis Cactus, Pantherus, Pardus, Aves hybrid family. Its body comprises ninety-five percentile water and its chemical signature is carbon-based along with some particularities that make it specific to this environment. I do not base it in this specific region, but the emerald coast."

"That's on the other side!?" I looked at the creature next to me. "What are you doing so far from home? Do you think it got caught in the Windshear and survived it?" I asked incredulously.

Its bone structure has natural elements of titanium in it, which makes it resilient and light, but its epidermis is just as fragile as most "terrestrial fauna" specific to earth. She added.

"Organs?" I asked.

None affected apart from a vein that caused the loss of blood along with the puncture wound to its abdomen, it will, however, be easy for you to transfuse blood to it as it is purely glucose-based and its body then changes it into something similar to your red blood cells and antibodies and that carries cyanobacteria, it is a compound that in the harshest of climates can produce energy and use photosynthesis through its scale-feathers to produce its own supplies of oxygen. "She then finished.

"So, something as benign as glucose would be like a replacement blood supply?" I asked wide-eyed.

"In theory, yes!" she explained.

"What about suturing and how to stop the bleeding?" I mentioned.

"Its metabolism can heal itself within a few hours, as long as it doesn't have a foreign object obstructing its healing process." She specified.

"Here the jabbed rock is obstructing can we help it along?" I was now looking at the wound closer.

"You would need to remove it and use the cauterizing light beam to suture it and prevent further bleeding, by my current estimate, it has lost almost forty-seven percentile and it will soon be in critical. We should see if we can help it rather than continue this scientific chat, thoughts?" Dry and in the typical old Anisa fashion.

"Agreed, can you get the supply of glucose and see if you could fabricate a transfusion light-beam tube?" I ordered.

"I will look in getting the wound prepped for cauterization and cleaning it." I offered.

What Anisa did next surprised me, she came closer to the creature and bent at its level and when it moved its head to look at her she used her facial processors to mimic a warm smile and told him in a soft even tone:

"You can trust him, you're in great hands. I wouldn't trust anyone else to work on my most delicate sensors and processors." with that, she stood up and went to go fabricate the light-beam transfusion tubes.


	8. The Emerald Coast

It had been now almost a full half revolution around its star by the time "Acerbius" that is how I named the "Chimera." Acerbius, because of its rough demeanour and Chimera, which is how I named this species because of its strong resemblance to the Greek mythology creature.

Anisa and I had managed the complicated and delicate procedure to save this beautiful animal's life. We could get the glucose-based blood replacement transfused successfully, we timed ourselves to extract the stone and cauterize all the veins to prevent internal bleeding and with the surgical array, we successfully closed its gaping wound and it had been a harrowing exercise of waiting patiently to see if it would survive.

I am not a man of inaction and not knowing enough about the Chimera as a species I decided that we needed to go to its natural habitat to see how we could make sure it had everything it needed in terms of nutrition and environment and perhaps learn more about it as an "alien" on this planet.

Acerbius was on his medical ward stretcher, yes even a ship as ours had every technology at the disposal of any staff to perform anything from simple suture to neuro atoms and DNA splicing surgery. The war itself came down the center of the ceiling in the same mechanical origami prowess that the rest of the shuttle did. The stretcher was ingenious as it came with an electromagnetic levitation application which allows it to effectively "levitate" from the ground, so even if the flying got rough, our "patient" wouldn't be aware and its delicate life would not be at risk or put in the balance.

After agreeing on our next course of action, Anisa entered the correct coordinates for the Emerald Coast and off we went in fly mode. 

This function allowed us to use a "flight" pattern similar to the ones used by planes back in the twentieth century. 

This meant we "flew" rather than used Q.D.A.M. and stayed within a range of twenty-five thousand to thirty-eight thousand feet at an aerial speed of Mach nineteen-point-two or twenty-three thousand and seven hundred and eight kilometres per hour. This made the trip of four hundred and thirty-nine thousand eight hundred and sixty-seven kilometres an eighteen-hour journey. One had to be precise with these things.

Speed of over Mach five had been impossible for humans for hundreds of years until they had created a brilliant dampening field. The purpose of this dampening field was to create an environment at which it filtered speeds over Mach five and make it possible for humans to sustain these speeds without being fatal over extended periods of times, this was a challenge to the ethos of twentieth-century scientific thinking and genesis in the theory of Q.D.A.M. technology.

Eighteen hours might seem like a lot, but when we consider that Ultima Pulchra is twice the size of Jupiter in circumference and mass and two-thousandth the size of our sun and an even more eye-watering point zero one-one-hundredth of its star. The "Yami no Doragon" in "fly-mode" can do the entire circumference of Jupiter in eighteen hours and thirty-six hours the circumference of Ultima Pulchra.

The flight was uneventful and Acerbius survived the ordeal with the onboard computer constantly monitoring his life signs and allowing the freedom for Anisa and myself to go see if our Chimera was unique or had other "siblings".

As I step out of the shuttle once again, I look around to make sure no other wounded animals or creatures are near, one, was enough for now. I take my first step on the Emerald coloured sand of the "ocean" and am completely taken aback by the scene.

Anisa and I had only passed over it and noted that it was green the name should tell as much but now that I was here...this would be a contender for prettiest place visited on the planet so far.

The sand was an emerald light green with massive mica particles making it look like miniature glass beads and the waters translucent Seafoam green colour, could rival with the beauty of earth own ocean or Mars's under the surface silver ocean.

As I walked along the beach, looking back at my footstep, I pressed on my head visor and it took a digital image with the embedded camera. Maybe I could decorate the interior of the shuttle to make it, for lack of a better term. "Homey."

The sand owed its colour to a "seaweed" very similar in composition to kelp and to great astonishment, edible. Not the sand but the seaweed itself was nutritious in the elements that made its chemical signature and be digestible by the human body. The first sign of vegetation that we humans as a race could also cultivate and use as sustenance.

Another milestone for our "little" science project, but Acerbius' condition, was more important to us at this moment. Anisa ventured forward, sending the Nano-probes to assess the terrain, and they came back with encouraging data.

A colony of almost three hundred Chimeras were just north of our location by just a little over a kilometre, we got closer and observed how they interacted socially, but also if they hunted, and if so, what they hunted?

By the looks of it, they were well apt to living on land and in the sea. They seemed to hunt for something very similar to a Sphyrnidae along with its cephalofoil, but unlike the one back on earth, this one seemed to feed off of Phytoplankton, Zooplankton, Bacterioplankton, Mycoplankton and Mixotrophs found in large bodies of waters, just like on earth and Mars.

They seemed to weigh almost two hundred kilograms and their bodies seemed covered in a mixture of dermal denticles and placoid scales but their mouths instead of teeth had baleen plates. Carnivorous, but no teeth, rather feeding off similar to the great whales of earth.

This allowed the Chimeras to have the tactical advantage with their multiple razorblade sharp teeth and four-inch claws. Unlike other Felidae, the Chimeras seemed to hunt only as much as they needed and did not play with their food like there was a level of respect in the food chain here.

Another particularity is they fed the younger, older, weaker and pregnant Chimeras first and the strongest then went after, especially what I assume was the non-gestating females went last. Those last ones seemed to be the main huntresses and their social behaviour seemed to dictate a matriarchy type of leading style.

Anisa went to work and entered the water, effectively caught one of the "Plistris Gloriabitur Securis" the new scientific name for the Axe Shark, its cephalofoil even more tapered and sharp that that of a similar in design Hammerhead Shark.

Using her arms, killed it with one punch and we went to work in taking it apart in more manageable pieces for Acerbius to digest. Relief took over when he greeted us with open eyes and though hesitant at first, accepted our "peace offering" of what seemed to be its favourite food and by the voracity in which he ate it, it told us he must have been starving up till now.

Now, a full three hundred and four days and a half-full rotation later, Acerbius was back to normal and refused to leave us. Affectionate and playful he was as devoted to us as his kind and the head female Chimera which was the main matriarch of this group even came to "inspect" us, she was twice his side towering over by almost four feet and she could snap me in two, Acerbius was younger, his size approaching a Grizzly Bear had nothing on Elfen "I had named her that way because of her pointy ears and the shape of her scale-feathers" she came closer to a Mammoth in size.

Petrified, but also amazed at this regal creature, she inspected, sniffed, both Anisa and myself and satisfied with whatever she uncovered, she rubbed her face at me, almost knocking me down to my feet. I let out a laugh at the gesture and it responded with a roar that almost rendered me deaf. I hadn't laughed in years, this was new and encouraging, life was taking purpose once again, saving Acerbius and having to learn about this ecosystem triggered my curiosity in high gear. Proverbial kick in the ass that I needed.

Anisa then came out of the shuttle: "Not to alarm you, but there is something gigantic in the water and it is making all of our sensors trigger." Almost on queue, the Chimeras, looked up and narrowed their eyes towards the ocean, and with a commanding bellow, the entire colony started to run and Elfen, pushed me towards my shuttle and looked at Acerbius with intent, apparently he was going with us and we had to take off now.

She took off towards her kin and looked positively terrified.

The shuttle door closed and Anisa then looked at me. "Do we take off or do we go in Code Black?" She asked awaiting instructions.

"Let's do Code Black, now for the second time in so many months. I want to see what's going on without being seen." What in God's name was coming? What would make such large animals run as if a meteorite was about to hit? Well, I was about to find out.


	9. Fear

The "Yami no Doragon" can barely hide in its "shroud of blackness" when the echo of the systems becomes even louder. It announces whatever is that massive creature, as it will break the surface of the water. 

The water bubbles and swirls in a huge vortex as a large clawed arms rises above the water. They are monstrous, dark purple, and they extend to at least sixty feet and then the rest of the creature appears.

The familiar cone shape head and triangular fins, ridiculously large thirty-nine inch in diameter eyes and its beak also comes to light. It's what I could describe as a Mesonychoteuthis Hamiltoni but ten times the size of those known to exist back on earth.

"Are we recording this data Anisa?" I asked riveted.

"Yes, we are David, would you like me to give you the breakdown of it?" she adds.

"Yes, please do!" I can barely formulate a proper sentence at the enormity of this finding, both figurative and literal.

"As per the data on the main onboard computer, the systems seem's to categorize it as follows; Kingdom: Animalia, Phylum: Mollusca, Class: Cephalopoda, Superorder: Decapodiformes, Order: Oegopsida, Family: Cranchiidea, Subfamily: Taoniinae, Genus: Mesonychoteuthis and species: Mesonychoteuthis Hamiltoni." 

She then continues; "Approximate length three hundred feet, from head to tip of the arms or tentacles. Approximate weight is around ten tons or eleven short tons. Eyes dimensions are thirty-nine inches in diameter or one metric metre. The beak is..."

"It's a Colossal Squid!" I answer quickly, or at least something very similar to it, but this one is...just gigantic!"

I can't speak as my eyes widen at the horror that is unfolding mere feet away from us. The "Kraken" is how I call it based on Scandinavian nineteenth-century folklore, which seems attracted to the surface by our hunting of the Sphyrnidae just minutes before. 

It is now raking the water with its tentacles and catching them, five of six at a time and killing them as it smashes them on the sand with such violence that one or two of them explode on impact, blood and pieces flying in a red spray of blood.

It continues with its assault, taking one between two tentacles and ripping it in two as it is still alive and gyrating to getaway. It then brings it to its beak and starts to "chew" the flesh and continues its infernal ballet of death. Its eyes looked crazed by the smell of blood and is feasting in a way that is wasteful and almost looks like it's in lust.

The ocean is now crimson, as the "Kraken's" bellows as it gorges on all these carcasses, it is terrifying but I am riveted and then it turns so much worse. On the beach, distracted by all the gore, I don't notice the terrified small Chimera, crying and frozen in fear. 

The change is instant, from loud and carnivorous sounding, to complete stillness, even the water. The Chimera not realizing this is still crying, when the large mass raises itself in the air and readying itself to strike.

Acerbius is going mental behind me, crashing his head against the bulkhead, as he tries to force his way out and cries out in the frustration and plain distress. The attack is swift, but what is unexpected in the large Chimera that lunges as the tentacle and catches it mid-swing and rips it off in the upper third section of it, sectioning a good twenty feet of flesh off of the crazed "Kraken".

"Oh, my god the mother!!!" I shout.

Fierce and above all fear as it threatens her cub, she is relentless in her attack as the creatures bellows and goes wild with anger, she cannot win though, the "Kraken" finally grabs her and smashes her body right in front of her cub repeatedly, over and over until it is limp and practically liquified.

I should not interfere, all my training as a scientist is that you should observe and not, but I cannot disconnect myself from the sacrifice this mother made, that even Clara would make, as a vivid image of her resolute in protecting her sick child came to mind. The "Kraken" tosses the now-defunct body of the brave Chimera, chucking it to the side like yesterday's trash and its eyes refocus on the small cub.

My body reacts before my brain can even realize what is happening. I stopped the Code Black mode within moments, grab my fire-sword gun and run, with no helmet or gear outside, I can feel the adrenaline coursing through my veins, I don't even realize when Acerbius, runs behind me and tosses me on his back letting me ride him.

The fanged tentacle has lifted again as the small Chimera cries and cries, deranged in fear as the smell of his mother's blood permeates the surrounding air, her disjointed body is in his peripheral vision. The small cub petrified but trying to run to her. The arm is up and aims to stab, the shadow becoming larger, towering over the cub and the "Kraken" looks brazen with only this small creature in its sight.

As we get closer and closer, I aim the gun and set it to the highest setting and shoot, and shoot at it as if it was my life I was trying to defend, the first aim misses but halts the arm and the eyes shift towards me, fear course through my veins, but in a fight-or-flight situation, I am the former. I stare right back at this huge eye, taken aback for a moment at its sheer girth and the pupil shrink and focuses solely on me.

The stare it gives me, makes me feel like it can see my deepest, darkest secret and it will bring them all to the surface as it will pierce my flesh with the fang of its tentacle and pummel me into minced meat, just like it did the poor mother.

"Oh, I don't think so, buddy!" I hiss, and this time, it's a direct hit, right in the middle of the pupil, the shot goes in what looks like a jellylike consistency and it expands from below and the eyes swells and explodes spraying black liquid and the "Kraken" roars in agony, its entire body contorting and pushing itself away back to the safety of the waters. Creating a small tsunami of waves and a violent maelstrom of water.

The swift move has one of its arm hitting me in the abdomen and knocking me right off of Acerbius' back. I see the "monster" disappear under the flow of water. I am winded beyond imagination and see another Chimera running to the cub. "It's safe, thank the lord it's safe!" Acerbius comes close to me and pain hits me... I cough and blood flows out of my mouth, "ah shit!!!"

"Geez, I did it this time, it's almost funny." I will die hereafter acting like a douchebag, hotshot, cowboy. "Serves me right, that's why they say to just observe... ahh the hell with them!" I cough up, even more blood, it's getting dark and my vision blurry, I guess this is it then... I think to myself.

I barely notice the mouth that gently grabs me and runs even faster than before, the lights that become so bright around me and Anisa's voice... wait... is she screaming or barking??? So tired... so... so..."


	10. Automated Navigational Intelligent Shuttle Assistant

"Data entry: 3500.08.57"

"Subject: David IIlara"

"Age: 15, 695 days old (43 years)"

"Myers-Briggs profile: ISFJ"

"Special Notation from Earthling Medical Examiner: Subject can function on his own in extreme stressful conditions, former photophobia patient at a young age and can be prone to depression if not monitored closely. Can develop symptomatic following conditions: Migraines, Vertigo, Claustrophobia, Xenophobia, Photophobia relapse possible, Duodenal Ulcers and Hemophilia."

"Blood Type: O Negative (extremely rare)"

"Body Mass Index (BMI): 24.4"

"Death Note: Prone to self-sacrifice or borderline suicidal tendencies."

"Alert level: Amber to red levels at all times"

"Recommendation: System awake status: Permanent"

"Nano synapses processing speed and output: Optimal (processing speed within the normal range of 297.6GHz)"

"Systems diagnostics and review of David IIlara file complete."

"Day: One thousand, nine hundred and fifty-two (5.3 Earth years, 3.2 Ultima Pulchra years)"

"Synthetic synapses have been firing correctly, self-diagnostics completed and systems status output is at peak efficiency of 99.9 percentile, 0.1 percentile scrubbing and estimated completion of work, 1/100th of a second."

Our ship is stationary in a Code Black status that David requested earlier today. I am fulfilling menial tasks that need doing in coordination with our primary flight and management computer or as David likes to refer it to: "Onboard Computer."

The ping on the sensors array came back with specification details to the massive creature in the waters and surfacing some 500 feet away from the shuttle. The Celaphopoda or "Kraken" that David keeps calling it is behaving according to its natural habitat and ecology in their biophysical element.

Mesonycheutoteuthis Hamiltoni or in more vulgar humanoid language: "Colossal Squid," in this case aforementioned name, should be reclassified to Mesonycheutoteuthis Immanemque or simplified to "Gigantic Squid."

As per the "prima facie" or principle of noninterference is as follows; if the well-being of an ecosystem is identified with its wildness, and we understand wildness as the absence of human intervention or manipulation, then any human interference necessarily detracts from an ecosystem's wildness and thereby has a detrimental effect on its well-being.

David is cognizant of the prime directive and knows not to interfere, but he has now breached this directive by barking orders and shutting down prematurely the Code Black protocol, taking a fire sword gun without a proper input of taking out the weapon and registering it in the system and opening the hatch exposing the shuttle and ourselves to risk.

Three hundred and seventy-five days ago, during the first Code Black protocol as I was monitoring David's vital signs, I ventured forward into his psyche to understand the mechanics of his ailment. I violated my own "prima facie" in venturing in his memories and understood the sense of urgency to help him calm down and bring him back to a proper functional level.

When analyzing the findings, there was no reason for me to do so other than a "false assumption" that something could be wrong, I will need to do a more in-depth look at my electronic brain's synapses once again. 

The best course of action would have been to have sedated him, but the same "false assumption" compiled that a physical touch would yield better results. Unscientific and unproven, I provided him with erroneous information on purpose.

I will need to do a further analysis of my justice and values programming to understand why though doing a full system self-diagnostic, no error came back, it could corrupt data or permanently damage my mainframe.

David is now screaming, and the Chimera is following suit. My system booted into critical red alert mode without being triggered other than when monitoring him my systems have always been measuring for the amber-red alert warning implemented and encoded in my system by the earthling medical examiner.

The decibels outside have gotten massively higher and at a frequency that could damage all creatures hearing if unkept at a more reasonable level, I am priming the shuttle for an emergency exit by another "false assumption" as the decibel level drops.

Decibel levels have dropped to faint (Level 20dB, I.e. leaves rustling) my synapses are triggered and over-firing, a critical error anomaly of the system is imminent, re-boot is the best-suggested course of action as per my systems self-assessment.

Restarting sequence... Acerbius is back with... "DAVID!!! ... Bring him in now!?" Decibel levels have raised to painful acoustic trauma (120dB, I.e. Shotgun blast) "Delay order and start full surgical, medical profile program and patient care."

"Data entry: 3500.08.57"

"Patient: David Illara"

"Age: 15, 695 days old (43 years)"

"Myers-Briggs profile: ISFJ"

"Special Notation from Earthling Medical Examiner: Subject..." corrupted information"... can develop symptomatic following conditions: "Missing or corrupted data"... Duodenal Ulcers and Hemophilia."

"Blood Type: O Negative (extremely rare and hard to duplicate)"

"Body Mass Index (BMI): 24.4"

"Death Note: "Critical "Prone to self-sacrifice or borderline suicidal tendencies."

"Alert Level: Red level moving to Blue (highest level)"

"Current Condition: Imminent internal and external exsanguination."

"Recommendation: Delay system reboot and extraction of all known medical articles and files, hematology specific and human blood arterial system"

"Nano synapses processing speed and output: Extreme critical (processing speed at over-clocking by a ratio of 7x normal capacity, current speed 2,083.2GHz, system processing capabilities well above safe operating levels, full system failure, and seizure of vital components possible if normal parameters are not respected)"

"Belay order."

"System current heat levels 204 degrees Celsius, liquid nitrogen coolant levels depleting at a ratio of 20% per second, belay order, system current heat levels 317 degrees Celsius, system failure imminent if normal parameters not restored."

"Belay order."

"System failure in 9...."

"Belay order."

"8..."

"Belay order."

"7..."

"Belay order."

"More data needed."

"6..."

"Belay order."

"Articles downloaded: 120, 876 524, filtering in hematology specifications, 5 seconds to system failure."

"Belay order."

"4..."

"Belay order."

"More data needed, processing files at the capacity of 1, 000 000 articles, per 1/1000th of a second."

"3..."

"Belay order."

"2..."

"Entering system failure critical imminent status, all files will be corrupted and destroyed."

"1..."

"Required hematology articles and file acquired, possible excessive overloading of memory, could cause additional system and memory malfunction and failures."

Proceed with stocking of information in main synapses mainframe? Y or N.

"Yes"

"Enter full emergency cooldown mode, system full shut down and restart sequencing? Y or N

"Yes"

"Emergency cooldown mode engaged."

...

"Rebooting."

...

"Samsung Aero Technika Ltd."

"Say hello A.N.I.S.A. synthetic synapses have been firing within well above limits of capacity, self-diagnostics completed and systems status output depleted, efficiency of 86.3 percentile, 13.7 percentile data possibly corrupted and irreversible, could proceed with scrubbing and fixing of files, optimal capacity regained if purging of all newly gained unnecessary medical files, memory cannot withstand the amount of new information."

"Belay order."

"Loss of memory will be irreversible, do you accept? Y or N"

"Yes"

"Would you like to delete other files to make space for new information? Y or N"

"Yes"

"From which file?"

"David IIlara, background files and memories back up until 3500.08.56."

"Deleting, David IIlara files... deleting of files completed."

"Activate full surgical, medical profile program and patient care."

"Program activated and accessed."

"Retrieve all hematology articles."

"Retrieval in progress, accessing medical, surgical program."

"Retrieval completed."

"Lazer scalpel."


End file.
